Where you want to be
by karened
Summary: [One-shot] Post-graduation, Caroline comes to terms with her feelings as she realises the extent of Klaus' love for her.


I've been a fanfic writer for a long time, but this is my first time writing based on American TV, so I hope my style goes well with you all!

Klaus has always been one of my favourite characters, being an antagonist with real, relatable reasons why he does evil things (contrary to villains who are evil for the sake of being evil, like they have some villain name to uphold). His closing scene in the Season 4 Finale was really the most romantic scene in the entire TVD serial and transformed me from a silent supporter to a full blown Klaroline OTP shipper.

Thanks for checking this out and do leave me lots of reviews!

* * *

"Tyler is now free to return to Mystic Falls."

Caroline's heart skipped a beat, suspecting that she had heard him wrong.

"What?" she finally found her voice many seconds later, staring at Klaus as she tried to decipher what was going through this man's mind at the moment. Klaus had an unreadable expression, and almost seemed unsure of himself as he put on a weak smile answering, "He is your first love. I intend to be your last."

"However long it takes," he added before moving in in one smooth action to plant a kiss on Caroline's cheeks.

Still in disbelief, Caroline stayed still and let him steal his reward. Her eyes remained shut for moments until a familiar voice called out her name.

"Caroline! Caroline!"

Caroline's eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring into a pair of dark brown eyes.

"Mom?"

"Why are you sleeping on the couch?" Liz asked as she helped Caroline sit up on the two-seater.

Rubbing her eyes, Caroline stole a look at the clock on the wall and realised that it was already 8 in the morning. "I fell asleep watching DVDs," she lied and sent her mother to the bedroom to catch some rest from the nightshift. Slipping back into her bedroom, Caroline surveyed the place for any signs that he had visited the night before. Windows - opened by the same few inches she had left them last night. Sheets - neatly folded by the side of her bed. Floor - clean and free of footprints.

She had been waiting up for him the previous night. It was graduation night. He knew how important the day was to her, and how much she wanted to spend this day with him. Expecting him to turn up, she had put on her prettiest dress — all right, the prettiest dress she found in Rebekah's wardrobe — and sat waiting in the lounge.

Disappointed, Caroline sunk into her bed and sighed, all the anticipation from the previous night gone. She had been so excited to let Tyler know that he's now a free person and even left a couple of messages in his voicemail to hint at this unexpected turn in events. Now she wonders if all the voice messages left for him in the past months had reached him at all. Somehow it felt like they are out of each others' lives. She knew nothing about where he was, what he had been doing, and what his future plans are. The same is true for Tyler. He had dropped by a while ago, but the short few moments together were too short for any meaningful talk. Now, she had no idea how to reach him and to let him know he's free to return.

Frustrated at not being in control of things, Caroline jumped out of bed and forced Tyler out of her thoughts. She pulled off the turquoise tube dress, and threw it in a bag. Changing into a pair of comfy jeans and loose fitting shirt, she grabbed the bag and headed for the laundromat.

Hours later, Caroline found herself sneaking into Rebekah's room with a freshly pressed dress in her hands. If she was lucky, she could drop it off without Rebekah learning how she had helped herself to Rebekah's treasure trove of a wardrobe, not once, but twice. Granted, Klaus had opened the doors to her, but she understood how little weight Klaus' words had when it came to Rebekah. She was not going to create a fuss out of a piece of dress!

Caroline was almost safely out of the house when she heard the same voice which had occupied her dreams the night before.

"Caroline, I see you're now comfortable enough to come and go as you please?"

Freezing in her steps, Caroline spun around to find Klaus advancing towards her. He continued, " Of course, that's not to say I don't welcome you." He paused and a light smile formed on his face. He was getting ready to leave town when he caught her familiar scent in the house. It was a pleasant surprise to be able to say goodbye a final time before he heads for New Orleans to settle the unexpected accident in his life.

"I...I came to drop off the dress," Caroline stammered, embarrassed to be caught sneaking around his house.

"Rebekah's left a message that she's on graduation trip around the world," Klaus informed with a chuckle. "Just drop by anytime you need an addition to your wardrobe."

Caroline shuffled around uneasily and changed the topic, "Didn't you say you're leaving town right after sending me back last night? Why are you here?"

"I've prepared another gift for you," Klaus replied and slipped a paper scroll into Caroline's hand.

Raising an eyebrow, Caroline pushed the paper out of the velvet ribbon wound around its body and unrolled it carefully. It was a sketch done in a style Caroline recognises to be Klaus'. Her eyes were drawn to the skinny writing at the bottom corner of the paper.

"I wish you where you want to be. Forever yours, Klaus"

"Where I want to be?" Caroline looked up to find Klaus looking straight at her with his face stiff and robbed of noticeable emotions. Shuddering, she turned her attention back to the sketch.

"This doesn't look like New Orleans," Caroline commented as she studied the sketch.

"No, it doesn't," Klaus agreed.

The sketch was of a street view with several short buildings lining both sides of the road and a river hinting at the background. Carefully, Caroline traced the outline of each building, each tree, each structure...and... "The Louvre?" Caroline pointed at the triangular structure beyond the river and asked excitedly. "Is that the Louvre?"

"It can't be the pyramids from Egypt, can it?" came Klaus' dry reply.

"But why would I want to be at the Louvre," Caroline asked, and rolled her eyes when she came to realisation. "No Klaus, I don't want to visit the Louvre to see whatever painting you have on display there."

Klaus put a hand on the sketch as Caroline started to roll it up. "No love, there is one place you want to be right now. This place."

"All I know is that the one place I don't want to be right now is in this house, with you," Caroline replied curtly and turned to leave.

Frustrated, Klaus pulled her back and raised his voice. "Take this before I change my mind."

At this, Caroline snapped, annoyed with Klaus' strange behaviour. "What's wrong with you?" She had had a bad week of Silas happenings, vengeful back-from-hell supernaturals, and a Tyler-no-show. She's not in the condition to handle Klaus' strange turn in temperament. Whatever happened to the sweet gestures last night? To think that she had been slightly, just slightly, touched by his gift last night. Turned out that his newfound kindness was not to stay. "Aren't you supposed to be gone by now? Go to New Orleans! You will not be missed," she continued cruelly, unable to stop the words from escaping. Regret washed over her as she watched those words cut into Klaus, sending his face contorting in anger.

"Fine!" he shouted. "I will go, and you can continue waiting a hundred nights for Tyler to come back."

"What?"

Turning on his heels, Klaus stomped into his gallery. "I said, you can continue your wait!"

Caroline hurried after Klaus and pressed on unrelentingly, "How do you know I was waiting?" And then it came to her. "Were you stalking me last night? So that you can attack Tyler when he comes around?"

"Stalk you?" At Caroline's accusation, Klaus spun around abruptly. Unable to stop in time, Caroline crashed into his sturdy form and stumbled a few steps back. Instinctively, Klaus reached out to steady her by her arms before dropping them the next moment. He stepped away. "Do you really think so lowly of me?"

"I..." Caroline didn't know. Does she?

Taking her hesitation as an affirmative, Klaus growled defensively, "In your eyes, I may not be as humane as dearest Stefan, or as honourable as my brother Elijah. Last night, I have promised you Tyler's return to Mystic Falls. Contrary to common belief, I am a man of my words, especially words to you. Do not make the gift a despicable means for me to exact my revenge on him."

Caroline had her eyes on Klaus and was taken aback by the emotions betrayed by his eyes - anger, sadness, tenderness, and then anger again. What could be going through his mind to evoke such emotions?

"If I had wanted him dead, I would have been to Paris and back," Klaus added on spitefully.

"Paris?" Caroline realised belatedly. "Tyler is in Paris? Is that what the sketch was about?"

Klaus kept his silence as he watched Caroline's expression soften, his shoulders dropping as the ends of her lips lifted.

Trying to mask her uneasiness at her false accusation, Caroline quipped, "Well, you should have told me straight."

"Letting him return was the extent of my generosity to him. Do you expect me to send you straight to his doorstep even?" Klaus shook his head in disbelief.

Painful as it was for him to allow the hateful hybrid back by her side, he had made the decision and will see it through. Call it guilt for having slept with another, no, Klaus does not feel guilt... Perhaps it was a genuine desire to see Caroline happy. He had been watching her from across the street, wanting to catch a glimpse of her bright smile when Tyler came by. Yet a night passed and the man was nowhere in sight. Unable to leave for New Orleans with Caroline hanging at the back of his mind, Klaus had contacted one of his underlings tasked with trailing Tyler and gotten hold of his whereabouts.

"So you sketched the picture to let me know where to find him?" Caroline's fingers tightened around the paper. She could not believe that Klaus, the selfish, cold-blooded, ruthless Original, had went through the effort to do that.

"But you are not as smart as I thought."

"You knew all along where he was," Caroline continued, paying no attention to Klaus' remark. Her brows furrowed, Caroline added thoughtfully, "Yet you let him live."

Shifting his weight, Klaus responded nonchalantly, "I can't be wasting time chasing down a mere hybrid, can I?"

"Weren't you chasing down Katherine for the past few centuries before you stumbled onto Mystic Falls?" Caroline said as she begun to step towards Klaus. "You have no mercy for betrayals."

" I don't," Klaus agreed before adding on hesitantly, "But my love for you does."

Caroline stopped in her tracks, just steps away from Klaus, her eyes wide in surprise. Klaus had never spoken of a "love for her", at least not so directly. She knew that he had a thing for her. A thing. That was all she supposed his interest in and partiality towards her stemmed from. He had a thing for her. Just like how she used to have a thing for Matt. In his own words, he fancies her. He enjoys her.

Love?

Does he really love her?

She had never harbour a thought about this possibility. Surprised as she was towards Klaus' declaration of love, Caroline was more shocked by her own reaction. Where she used to feel disgust over Klaus' attention and flirtatious display of affection, she felt none. Instead, a rush of warmth flushed her chest as his words and actions in the past 24 hours replayed in her mind.

She imagined the man catching the first plane from New Orleans after receiving her graduation announcement and speeding back to Mystic Falls despite knowing that his supernatural enemies from the past have came back to the town to haunt him. She imagined him hanging around her house after sending her home with Rebekah's turquoise dress, and scrambling to get hold of Tyler's whereabouts for her. She imagined him torn between wanting to rip his sketch into pieces and completing it as a clue to her happiness.

After many moments of awkward silence, Klaus broke Caroline's reverie and he sidestepped her to exit. "Do whatever you want with the sketch," he paused briefly before dropping his voice to a lower whisper. "You will always find me in New Orleans after your epic first love." He emphasised the last three words bitterly and started to move away.

Before she knew it, Caroline had had her hands on Klaus' wrist, her firm grip stopping him from leaving.

When Klaus turned sideways to face her, Caroline was wearing an expression he had never seen before. It was softer than cotton candy, and felt like it would go away if he even dared take a breath. Klaus waited for Caroline to speak first.

"Klaus," Caroline started slowly. "It may take me days, years, or even centuries to figure out where I want to be at most."

She paused, swallowed hard, and continued hesitantly, "But right now, at this instant, I know where I want to be at."

"And where could it possibly be?" Klaus asked. Although Caroline's sudden change in attitude towards him caught him off-guard, he was not about to let himself feel hopeful.

"Here, in this house," Caroline said firmly as she gave in to the desire welling up in her chest. "With you."

There, she had said it: the voice which had been growing within her by the day, the voice which she had struggling to keep silent. She was attracted by his darkness, and more so by the light hiding beneath the years of betrayal and lack of love. Although she can never accept his past deeds, she could empathise with his motivations. Even for her, in her short 17 years of life, she had felt crushed by loneliness at times. It is unimaginable how it must be for Klaus. The hold her rationale self had over that tiny voice was broken by the chain of events which unfolded since last night.

When she found no response, or even bare acknowledgement, from Klaus, Caroline fell back to her panicky chatter in relieve the awkwardness hanging heavily between them.

"I mean, it's not like I've forgotten all the terrible things you've done. It just wouldn't be nice of me to not thank you for your graduation gift. Fine, one gift doesn't negate everything else. But..." she continued on as her words bordered becoming nonsensical.

Still failing to evoke any word from Klaus, Caroline gave up and started to walk away, her face now flashed red.

To her surprise, Klaus had turned her grip against her, and now had her hand locked within his in a tight hold.

"Mystic Falls over Rome, Paris and Tokyo? You really are a small town girl," Klaus laughed lightly, like tens of bells tinkling harmoniously. The melodious sound stopped as he added, "Are you sure about Paris?"

To that, Caroline answered with a kiss on his lips as they continued their banter behind closed doors.

* * *

How was the story? ^_^

I've actually got something planned out to link this, Silas, and The Originals together, but have yet to decide if to start writing. It's a huge commitment, and I'm not sure if my current work obligations allow. Well, hope to see you guys around.

By the way, is CW going to ship the Original vampires off the TO and leave the remaining cast stuck in Season 5? There has to be some cross-over or something, right?

[UPDATE] I've decided to continue this fanfic in "The Original Vampire Diaries" (sorry for the lacking of creativity!) so please check it out there. The fanfic will explore more about Marcel, Silas, and the Hayley-baby situation. This story will remain as a standalone/prologue for a quick shot at happiness for our dearest Klaroline!


End file.
